THE DISTURBING ELEMENT.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XVI, Issue 956, 2 July 1908, Page 20

THE DISTURBING ELEMENT.

It is still persistently rumoured that the present session will be disturbed by efforts on the part of the prohibitionists to have our licensing laws still more a’.tered to meet their views. Insatiable as they always are, they have not yet arrived at the stage of prohibition made easy that they desire. The success which has hitherto been theirs in the handling of politicians and the foisting of nobodies on to electors, as members, has, we have no doubt, turned their brains just a little bit more. We understand that the programme for this session is to have a shot at the members, manv of whom are on their last political legs, with a double-barrelled gun, one barrel being the bare majority, and the other Dominion option- While no doubt one or both barrels will make an effective bag from the number of already tottering politicians, we do not think that the House will stand any nonsensical tinkering with the present Licensing Act. Should the prohibitionists in their blind bumptiousness seek to have either or both of these provisions passed into law, then we not only predict for them positive failure, but foresee a strong reaction against them. The bare majority, as applied to other people’s property, is so outrageously unfair that the politicians who espouse this suggestion will be brave indeed. The spectacle of any district being handed over for three years to be wet or dry on a bare majority vote is too ridiculous for discussion. More so, indeed, is the one which embraces colonial option, which would mean, if carried, that the sale, manufacture, or importing of liquor of any description would be absolutely prohibited. Our Dominion would then be dry with ’ a vengeance. It is well that the Alliance has shown to the people the insatiable appetite for alleged reformation that they possess. AH along the line, from the time of the first enactment of local option law, have these prohibitionists been pandered to, their wishes‘have been given effect to, and they have had practically their own sweet way. And yet they are not satisfied. Behind the specious plea to give no-license a trial, lies the intention of wiping all liquor clean out of the Dominion. Electors would do well to awake to this fact, and find out from each no-license pleader what the intentions of the prohibitionists are, if they once gain the upper hand.